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Eugene woman leads a “spirited” walking program

By Randi Bjornstad

The Register-Guard

Appeared in print: Monday, March 15, 2010, page D1

“I really like walking for exercise,” says Mary-Kate Mackey, which makes her new “membership” in Spirited Walkers of Eugene just about perfect. Even before she joined Kay Porter’s group, which caters to people training to walk either a half or full marathon, Mackey had developed the walking habit.

“Walking is great for weight loss. I lost 40 pounds by walking four, five, six miles at a stretch, five days a week,” she says. “I walked the dog. I walked my husband. So part of my reason for joining Spirited Walkers is to find more people to walk with — and to have the discipline of following a schedule.”

Porter has been working with would-be marathon walkers in the Eugene area for a decade, but she’s been a sports counselor and author way longer than that.

“I’m currently writing a sequel to my book, ‘The Mental Athlete,’ which has been out for 25 years,” Porter says. “I also counsel clients and athletes of all ages, from beginners to elite athletes.”

She formed Spirited Walkers in 2000, after a fellow sports therapist “asked me if I could train her and six of her friends to walk the Portland marathon,” Porter recalls. “The second week, 10 people showed up, and the third week I had 15, and the group has been going — and growing — ever since.”

She borrowed the name, Spirited Walkers — with permission — from local race-walking enthusiast and writer Carolyn Kortge, who published her own book, “The Spirited Walker: Fitness Walking for Clarity, Balance and Spiritual Connection,” in 1998.

Mostly women, Porter’s trainees usually join to get into shape, and then stick around as they make new friends and, oftentimes, decide they too would like to walk at least a half-marathon.

The eight-month regimen starts in mid-January, although people who already walk regularly can join later and still be ready for the Eugene Marathon in May and the Portland event in October, Porter says.

Anyone who already walks a couple of miles three times a week or one trek of four to five miles a week “will be able to meld into the group” with no problem.

“But even beginners can still join, and I will put together a program specifically for each person,” Porter says.

The group has a sit-down meeting once each month to talk about training issues such as nutrition, hydration, proper equipment and injury prevention. Porter distributes a new training program for each two-month segment, “because I don’t want to scare people away by looking at the whole schedule at once.”

Participants gather for a weekly “long walk” each Saturday morning. They walk the rest of the prescribed amounts on their own during the rest of the week, keeping mileage logs and notes about progress and problems.

“One of the wonderful things we also do during the training is a full-day hike in the Cascades every Sunday in August,” Porter says. “It’s part of the program, and we see some beautiful places while we’re doing our hikes.”

Mackey calls looking forward to that prospect “the cherry on top” of the Spirited Walkers program.

“I’m already having a great time,” she says. “I’ve already walked a lot of places I wouldn’t have known about without the program.”

She doesn’t know yet if walking a marathon is in her future.

“I mainly want to be fit and to be able to walk wherever I want. My goal is to walk the streets of Paris without being tired or winded. If I do a marathon, I do it. If I don’t, I don’t.”

The eight-month Spirited Walker program costs $150, “but I let people come back the next year with no charge if they want to do it again,” Porter says. “That’s my way of giving back and encouraging people to stay fit.”

One of the things she’s learned through running Spirited Walkers “is how competitive women are, and that’s so cool,” Porter says. “I literally have to make them do a warm-up walk. Otherwise, they’ll just get out there and zoom. I tell them they need to warm up slowly so they burn fat first. That’s the only way I can get them to slow down.”

She started running during the “running boom” of the 1970s but found it difficult at first.

“It took me a long time to run even a lap, then a mile and then three miles,” Porter recalls.

But eventually she ran seven marathons before turning from the rigors of running to walking.

She hasn’t walked a marathon herself for four years, because she walks at least 30 miles a week, “and my goal is to be fit and injury-free.”

Training others has been more satisfying than she expected, Porter says.

“Spirited Walkers feeds my spirit — for me, helping people become fit and find their better selves is really a joyful thing.”

For information about the Spirited Walkers of Eugene program, call 541-342-6875, e-mail KayPorter1@comcast.net or go online to www .thementalathlete.com.

“Helping people become fit and find their better selves is really a joyful thing.”